Page 53 of Smolder (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 29)

“Why do you want to train up?” I asked.

“I don’t want to still be working the door here at Guilty Pleasures when I’m fifty like Buzz, or if I am I want to know I tried for something more.”

I nodded and tried not to show how surprised I was that he said something deep. I wanted to ask Graham if he’d been taking classes or reading self-help books because this was far more insightful than normal for him. I tried to remember how many years it had been since I’d really been around him and couldn’t. It had been a while; I guess I was going to have to give Graham the room to have grown and changed just like I had, like the people I was in love with had. I’d just pegged Graham as one of those men who thought trying to get into women’s pants was his main purpose in life and hit the gym just enough to make that more likely. He’d age badly into one of those dirty old men who forget they’re not twenty-five anymore. It almost hurt to be this wrong about him.

The lights dimmed in the club, and there were squeals and excited whispers from the audience. We stopped talking and I looked at the stage. Jean-Claude and Nathaniel had been very hush-hush about the new dance routine. They wanted me to see it fresh with the audience, I wasn’t sure why, but Jean-Claude had said something about wanting to still be able to surprise me. I’d told him he surprised me pretty regularly, but whatever his motivation it had been important to him, so here I sat in the dark with everyone else.

I expected someone to introduce the act like usual, but the music started with no voice-over, and no clue what was about to happen. It took me a few seconds to realize what the song was, “Send Me an Angel,” because it was a version I’d never heard before. It was such an unexpected music choice that I laughed. Then a soft bluespotlight swirled over the crowd and the stage, then up to the ceiling, and there was Jean-Claude floating, levitating at the highest point of the room. My table didn’t have a good view of it, so I wasn’t sure why there were gasps and little screams of excitement other than it was him. I caught glimpses of pants and a sleeveless shirt, but that was about it. He slowly levitated downward and he had wings, large, feathered angel wings. They didn’t flap, but the feathers moved in the soft wind that played in his long black curls, keeping them perfectly back from his face so that he hung suspended but nothing obscured his beauty as he gazed down on the women sitting below him. They were going wild, already holding up money for him to come closer.

The wings were part of his costume, but the wind was his own power pushing against gravity and keeping him suspended, enabling him to begin to fly out over the audience while they screamed and tried to touch him as he went over their heads.

“Besides,” Graham said, “how’s a poor werewolf supposed to compete with that.”

Under other circumstances I’d have saidBut it’s not a competition, we’re poly, but I was too busy watching Jean-Claude fly. Holy shit.

20

A WOMAN STOODUP,grabbing at Jean-Claude, and a security guard was there to help her back to her seat as he floated higher out of reach. It took me a second to see the longish blond hair and realize the guard was Wicked, of the Wicked Truth, and as if the thought had conjured him I saw Truth among the tables. His darker hair made him almost invisible in the dimness. They were shadowing Jean-Claude through the room, making sure no one got out of hand. They were dressed in the same outfit that all the Guilty Pleasures staff wore, so I hadn’t picked them out. There were at least four more regular security people circulating through the tables. Wicked seemed to be directing them while Truth just stayed close to Jean-Claude as he hovered over the mostly female audience. Seeing Truth staying so close, I realized just how vulnerable Jean-Claude was as he flew above them. I fought to keep the earlier murder scene out of my head so he wouldn’t pick up on it while he was onstage. I trusted the Wicked Truth to keep him safe. I trusted them to keep anyone safe. They were just that good. I fought to let go of my fears and be here and now.

Ethan slid his arm more solidly across my shoulders, which reassured both of us since wereanimals like big puppy piles, or in this case kitten piles. I hoped he was only picking up on my emotions andnot the actual memory. I tried to keep my nightmares to myself. He hugged me a little closer as if to let me know it was okay.

Graham leaned into me and asked, “What’s wrong?”

I just shook my head and started to push him back from me, suddenly feeling claustrophobic with both of the men so close, but the moment I touched his bare arm a sense of calmness washed over me. Touching the werewolf steadied me in a way that touching the weretiger didn’t; maybe it was because wolf was Jean-Claude’s animal to call, but whatever the reason I was suddenly able to give my attention to Jean-Claude and the show.

He floated effortlessly over the excited crowd, the blue spotlights following him so that he moved in the halo of them. He was so beautiful that it made my chest tight, and over that was the thought I’d had almost from the beginning with him:How could anyone that beautiful want me?I cleaned up well, but who could compare to this, to him?

Then he was above me, his curls floating out from around his face. The eye makeup was almost like a domino mask across his eyes, larger than it had looked when I’d seen him in a vision earlier. The feathers on the wings moved in that small wind. I wanted to reach up and touch them to see if they were as soft as they looked. I stared into his eyes, their color lost in the blue spotlight so that they looked black like his hair. He reached down his hand toward me, and I offered him mine but let him dictate how much touching happened. It was like an even more complicated hand kiss, where if you offered your hand too forcefully you would end up smacking the man in the face.

He touched just his fingertips to mine and for a second the wind of his power played in my hair, sending it in a nimbus of curls around my face like a mirror of his. He smiled that smile that was only for me and then he was up and back over the crowd, faster this time so you could see the wings tremble as if they wanted to flap but couldn’t.

The crowd was screaming and clapping, and the extra security guards had to keep making them sit down so Jean-Claude didn’t hitthem or they didn’t grab him. Wicked and Truth stayed with Jean-Claude, using their more than human speed to keep up. They were vampires, not shapeshifters, but not all vampires have to rely on mind tricks to appear faster than human normal; like I’d explained to McKinnon earlier, some vampires are just that good.

Jean-Claude hovered over the stage, bringing his body from horizontal to vertical, one foot downward, one half bent at the knee, his arms upraised. He was pinned like a butterfly by the blue spotlight and then he slowly began to descend the few feet to the stage. One foot touched down first and then the bent leg came down behind him as if to help balance the wings on his back. The crowd went wild, standing up, applauding, and so much money appeared in the women’s hands that it looked like a forest had sprung up.

The blue spotlight began to change gradually to a more natural color, and Jean-Claude’s voice filled the room. I wasn’t sure if he was using a small microphone or vampire powers, but did it really matter? “Welcome to Guilty Pleasures.”

More screaming and shouts of “Jean-Claude! Jean-Claude!” and just high-pitched squeals, like the grown-up version of a child’s delight, wordless and unselfconscious. Strip clubs are one of the few places where women are encouraged to be as uninhibited as they want to be. I knew dancers who worked both male and female crowds and they all agreed that the women got out of hand more often than the men. I’d been shocked when I’d first found out, but where else could women let down all the socialization to be nice, to be quiet, to be nurturing, and finally not have to be any of those things, sometimes for the first time in their lives. It had taken me a long time to understand why women go so wild here, because though I tried to be kind I was too blunt to be considered nice by girl standards; I always spoke my mind, and I hated being expected to nurture just because I was female, so I was controlled here because I didn’t need an excuse to let go. I had had to date other women to understand my own sex better, because I was too much an outlier.

As the light changed I could finally see that his vest and pants were shiny vinyl in a rich blue, or maybe it was teal. The shininess of the fabric under the lights kept changing the color slightly as he moved. The wings were white, edged in shades of blue. “You have all tempted me down from heaven with your beauty.” When he saidtempted, the women cried out as if they were thinking of all the temptations they’d passed up or given in to, andbeautymade them beam at him as if him merely saying the word made them feel beautiful. I sat there enjoying the audience’s reaction to his voice without getting caught up in it. I was his human servant, which meant I had immunity to the kind of power that he’d spread over a crowd. His own vampire marks kept me safe, but when I’d first stepped inside Guilty Pleasures nearly ten years ago I’d used my own fingernails to draw blood so the pain would keep me free of his voice. He was a lot more powerful now than he had been then; I was happy to be free to watch but not be bespelled. There were signs at the door and all over:Warning: Vampires, shapeshifters, and other supernatural beings are inside. By crossing this threshold you give consent for them to interact with you, and for any preternatural abilities that they may possess to be used on you.I was still glad to be too powerful to be rolled by his voice.

Music started building again, harder music with a beat to it. “To know you better, I will give up my wings and ask you, glorious creatures, to help me earn my horns instead,” he said, grabbing the front of his vest and ripping it open; the wings came with it, and two of the security people caught them carefully and were handing them back to others near the stage curtain, but the audience didn’t notice they were watching Jean-Claude suddenly dance shirtless. You’d think that him with wings would have been more eye-catching, but you’d be wrong. I was in love with him, so I’d have believed I was prejudiced, but the crowd’s reaction told me it wasn’t just me.

The only darkness on the pale perfection of his chest was a cross-shaped burn scar. It was very similar to the cross-shaped scar I had on my left forearm. Jean-Claude’s was from centuries ago whensomeone shoved a cross into him trying to save their life. Mine had been a vampire’s daytime guardians branding me to amuse themselves until the vampires rose for the night. Jean-Claude and I had both killed the people that marked us. He’d been hunting humans and I’d been hunting vampires. He’d needed food, I’d been executing criminals—let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

Jean-Claude strutted and stalked the stage while the crowd screamed his name, and some tried to rush the stage. Security caught them, keeping them from climbing onto it. Jean-Claude teased, dancing in front of them as security fought to hold them back. Wicked and Truth stood on either side of the stage, only interceding if the shapeshifters and Buzz couldn’t manage it. I was too short to see all of the dancing unless I stood up, which most of the rest of the crowd was doing at their tables. Some of the women at the stage threw money even though they were being held back by security. A pair of pink lacy panties sailed past the security to land on the stage. I hadn’t seen anyone taking off their panties; did people bring clean underwear to throw at the stage? I hoped so.

The music changed and Jean-Claude grabbed the front of the pants and pulled. They came off in one piece like magic. He tossed them behind him where someone caught them and took them back behind the curtain. I had a glimpse of the thong he was wearing. He never stripped down that far, or at least not as long as I’d seen him onstage. He usually stopped with just his shirt off. I now knew why the pants had been looser than his normal for onstage: to give room for the pair of skintight leather boots that came up to at least the middle of his thighs. The boots were blue; I’d never seen him in boots that color before. From where I was sitting it looked like he was nude except for the boots, because I just wasn’t tall enough and sitting in my view was mostly women from the audience holding up money, or throwing money, or a thong, or... were those condoms still in their wrappers?

“Buddha sitting under a tree, it’s never been this bad,” Grahamsaid, almost yelling over the sounds of women screaming Jean-Claude’s name.

I could only nod in agreement. There was a surge behind us almost like the ocean drawing back before it slams the shore, I couldn’t describe it any better than that. I turned to look, but Ethan already had my arm and was pulling me to my feet, as I realized the crowd on this side was about to rush the stage en masse. Graham was on the other side of me, not grabbing my arm but facing the other way like he was going to block for me.

Ethan had a death grip on my left arm as he half led and half dragged me to the door beside the stage that led to the employees-only area. Graham came at our backs. I saw Truth and Wicked onstage with Jean-Claude. They were moving him toward the second exit that was literally at the back of the stage. Ethan got our door open. I must have hesitated, because he said, “Wicked Truth have him. We have you.” He spilled us through the door, with Graham having to push the crowd away to get us through and close the door. Luckily they weren’t trying for our door but just to rush past toward the stage.

We had a moment of silence behind the closed door, hearts pounding. I had a moment to acknowledge that it had been maybe frightening to see them go for the stage, but we hadn’t been the target, just an obstacle to be trampled. Ethan and I looked toward the few steps that led up to the stage door.

“I’m counting to five,” I said.

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